


What we once were

by TerresDeBrume



Series: AUs without a cause [37]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4324278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded in time sounds a lot cooler when you don't have to meet your lover's younger self.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What we once were

"Will you _stop_ following me around? I’m fine!”

 

Tony pauses, arms crossed on his chest, to give Loki the most insolent once-over he can manage, raised eyebrows and all—if the princeling didn’t appreciate him, Tony could be on his way to the prison by now, or at the very least he’d be in for a day in the stocks.

 

“You almost died,” he points out, to which Loki rolls his eyes in perfect teenage fashion:

“I didn’t,” he points out, “Go find yourself someone else to plague!”

 

Tony snorts at the familiar look of weariness—both from his time with an adult Loki as his companion, and from the three hundred and some years he’s just spent in Asgard—and gives a full-body shrug: “You’re free to keep dying if you want to—I just figured, since you obviously can’t tell when people like you or worry about you, maybe I’d just slap you in the face with it for a while. Metaphorically speaking.”

 

Tony knows he shouldn’t look at the pink splotches on Loki’s cheeks and remember what it was like to see them there when the god was an adult—how fierce and beautiful and dangerous he looked with his hair splayed over Tony’s pillows—but he can’t quite help the pang of loneliness at the thought.

He turns around when Loki’s face goes from pleased disbelief to confusion, fleeing the scene like a criminal, and wishing he could stop looking at a kid he’s genuinely fond of only to see the ghost of someone who’s probably forgotten all about him by now.


End file.
